Captain Caution (33 page)

Marvin spun the wheel. "Long guns to the larboard bow portsl" he said.

Coughing and cursing, the men wrestled with the long guns, hustling them from the smoky quarter-deck and running them forward through the clumps of seamen who hauled at tacks and sheets.

A gun roared from the Blue Swan, lying hid beyond the smoke cloud; and another followed. Grapeshot screamed and rattled high in the rigging of the True-Hearted Yankee. A severed rope plumped down at Marvin's feet.

The True-Hearted Yankee shot ahead, clear of the smoke. On her larboard beam, the Blue Swan yawed from side to side, her bowsprit dangling from a snarl of ropes and splinters, and her long jib-boom dragging beneath her bows.

The pendulum clanged; two carronades roared flatly from the True-Hearted Yankee. The Blue Swan's main course split apart and flapped raggedly in the wind.

The pendulum clanged again. Three more carronades {lung jets of smoke toward the damaged brig. The Blue Swan's bulwarks, near her foremast, crumpled into splinters. Her shrouds and backstays parted and curled upward like scorched string. The foremast itself swayed forward; then, with a crackling that came faintly to the

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shouting gunners on the True-Hearted Yankee, fell slowly backward, the yards and sails stabbing and tearing at the slender spars and straining canvas of the raking mainmast.

In the time it takes a small white cloud to pass across the face of the sun, the Blue Swan had become a shattered and unmanageable hulk.

Newton looked across the rail. "'Captain Cautionl'" he said, and laughed. "He waltzes across a harbor mouth filled with British guns enough guns to blow him and his ship and all of us to Chinal And right on top of that he takes this brig just like machinery, and not a hair of our heads is hurt and not many of theirs, either, for that matter. Yet there's Slade and his brig and his men at our mercy, on account of Captain CautionI"

XXXIII

To Yankee, her topsails thrown aback and her pendulum clanging slowly in the long swells, lay under the lee of the shattered brig; and Marvin, boarding the Blue Swan with the tall Indian at the head of a dozen brown-clad seamen, armed with pistols and boarding axes, found her decks thronged with a crew already beginning to be drunk and hilarious from the contents of a looted spirit locker.

On the quarter-deck, Slade, four officers about him, laughed hoarsely at the sight of Marvin and drank from the pannikin in his hand. He threw back his lank hair with a sweep of his head and spoke from the side of his mouth to his officers, who moved uncomfortably.

Marvin stationed six men at the break of the deck and motioned Steven to the cabin with the others; then spoke quietly to the group of men around the binnacle: "Where's your captain?"

Slade stepped forward. "There's no need of all this rigmarole," he said. "Go ahead and get it over with."

Marvin's reply was almost pleasant. "You're captain, are you?" He glanced at the other officers and spoke more to them than to Slade. "Properly handled, you should have had good cruising in this brig." He looked placidly at the True-Hearted Yankee, where roundmouthed guns seemed to stare in amazement at what they saw.

"Properly handled?" Slade asked. He drank again from his pannikin. "Handled with damned Yankee trickery, do you mean?" He laughed and turned, as if for admiration, to his officers.

Marvin stood silent, watching the drunken crew that cursed and stumbled amid the wreckage in the Blue Swan's bows.

"Well," Slade said in a voice suddenly quiet, "what about it?"

There was no sign that Marvin heard the words. He stood motionless with head a little bent, and seemed to listen.

Steven's head and shoulders appeared above the cabin hatch. "We can't find the specie," he said. He pitched a bundle of clothes to the deck, scrambled after it and turned to help Corunna through the hatch. Behind Corunna crawled Victorine, an angular figure, a cord made fast across one shoulder and between her knees, so that her

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voluminous skirts were drawn upward into bunchy pantaloons, beneath which her vast felt shoes fumbled for a foothold.

Marvin seemed not to see the two women. "You can't find the specieY' he asked the Indian thoughtfully. "That makes it awkward! Awkwardl" He clasped his hands behind him and moved closer to Slade's officers.

"Ordinarily," he said pleasantly, "I'd take you gentlemen aboard and give you fair treatment, but under the circumstances it wouldn't be safe. You see, the people aboard my brig know about this 'men who calls himself your commander. They know what he is. They know he's a thief, a blackmailer, a liar, a turncoat."

Marvin's face grew sterner. "They'd be bound to hang him without a trial," he told the silent officers. "It might even be they'd get out of control some night and do it. If they did, they might take you as well, knowing you'd carried out his orders, and I can't have that. I can't have thatI"

Slade threw back his head and folded his arms; there was a kind of pride, not braggadocio, in his attitude. "Go ahead," he said quietly. "Go ahead and get it done."

There was no Raw im his gameness; he expected no mercy and asked for none; but there was a barely perceptible quiver to Slade's mouth, and beneath the tranquillity of his voice something like a broken breath of sound, a tremor more felt than heard; and it disturbed Marvin. He looked at Slade again gravely; then turned to the officers.

"In spite of what I've been saying, I did mean to take this man home for trial, and I hoped to see him hanged, as did three of my friends here. I think they'll back me up in what I'm going to do about it now."

He cleared his throat, then went on: "Well, we've got him down, and we aren't going to do what we intended. He's lost his ship and everything else, thank God; and I guess it'll be enough for us if he goes back to England with you. If any of you like him, I guess you'd better keep him there, because if he's ever taken by any American ship, or sets foot on American soil again, it won't be good for him. I guess it's enough for us, if we ever think of him again, to know he's in England with nothing but his reputation as a traitor to make a living out of."

Slade looked at him incredulously. "You mean you're lettmg me got"

Marvin laughed. "If that's what you call it," he said, then spoke once more to the officers. "Now you can see why it's awkward. For the

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reason I've told you, I can't take you as prisoners, nor do I propose to leave this vessel while it hides the specie of this man you call captain. It's hidden somewhere in his cabin, for there's nowhere else he'd dare to hide it. Therefore, gentlemen, I'll have to ask you to get yourself as far into the bows of this vessel as you can get. I'm going to put a match to your magazine and blow up the cabin and the specie with it." He turned to Steven. "Break open a powder keg and lay a train to it."

A stocky, red-faced officer coughed nervously and addressed him in the thick speech of Devon. "The specie kegs," he said, "are stacked in the rudder case, high up."

Sladelaughed and tossed his empty pannikin over the side.

Marvin nodded to Steven, who turned and hurried below. He considered Corunna then. "I think," he said, "it's safe enough in case you wish to remain aboard this vessel. I'll have to set her afire, to make sure she's destroyed, but the guns you've heard will bring out the sloop-of-war to see what's happened. She'll be out pretty soon. But even if she doesn't come out, you're close enough to shore to get there with no trouble."

She looked at him, her knuckles pressed against her lips.

He hesitated. "In case you wish to be taken off - "

She only continued to look at him, but he thought her eyes were fierce with disdain.

"She will go," Victorine said. "Put her in your boat and take her to your ship."

"But if she doesn't want to - " he began.

Victorine pushed her red and furious face almost against his. "She will got" she screamed. "Put her in the boat and take her to your shipl"

Steven came through the hatch with a specie keg in his arms. "Seventeen of 'eml" he said. He thumped it down on the deck.

Marvin smiled and looked back toward Guia Head.

"Put 'em in the boat," he said. "The sloop-of-war's coming down on us. Throw over the guns and set this vessel afire in the bows."

But it was the Indian who came to Corunna and Victorine. "Now, ladies," he said, "we're going home."

The True-Hearted Yankee, under a cloud of sail, bore to the northwestward past the rounded peak of Castello Branco Point. Marvin, at her taffrail, watched the sloop-of-war haul her wind toward the burning brig; then spoke to Newton, who stood beside him, eyeing him with proud affection. "I want Argandeaul" he said. "I saw him

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run forward, when we came aboard, and jump down the fore hatch. He's got no business going below at a time like this. Send for him. Tell him I want him."

It was a full five minutes later when Newton returned, pushing Argandeau before him. At the mainmast Argandeau balked and crouched, like a startled fawn, casting timid glances at the cabin hatch. Marvin stared at him, puzzled. "Where've you been?" he demanded. "What ails you?"

Argandeau wiped his forehead with his sleeve and spoke humbly in a thick voice:

"Captain. I am not gay!"

"Aren't you? What of it?"

"Captain, I ask permission to spend all daylight hours for the length of this voyage in the hold."

"What?"

Argandeau shivered. "Captain, you have heard me speak of rabbits, perhaps too much and too lightly. The one called Victorine was formerly pleasanter to the eye, as you will believe, since it could not be otherwise. At the time I speak of she was an acquaintance of mine."

"Was she?" Marvin said calmly. "Well, I can't have women interfering with work aboard this vessel. House the long guns and make all snug. A little ordinary caution, now, will get all of us safely back to France and fortune."

"All of us?" Argandeau turned a tragic face upon him. "A little ordinary caution? It is in that manner that one speaks when it is not himself who is in danger, but only a friend! My captain, you would not be so philosophic if you had ever been loved by a volcano, and even made the miscalculation of being wedded to one! I would not admit it publicly, but it appears that one of my marriages was with this artilleristl This great grenadier! This Stromboli of a Victorinel It is my simple confession I am not perfect and I am at your

mercy."

"How is it possible for Argandeau to fear a woman?" Marvin asked. Then he quoted almost the selfsame words that Argandeau had once said to him on the deck of the Olive Branch. "You in France, you are subtler You hunt always for the heartstrings of a woman, and you play softly on them, so that she is moved to do your will."

"Ah, my Godl My Godl" Argandeau whispered. "I spoke as a Frenchman! I am an American now a true-hearted Yankee. I know nothing of women, and wish to know less!"

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Marvin stared hard at him. "All right, stay below during daylight unless you're needed," he said, and went below himself.

Marvin rapped on the door of the captain's cabin. Victorine opened it, knitting needles in her hand; and Marvin, looking beyond her, saw Corunna rise to stand with her back against the table, facing him.

"Well," he said gravely, "we're glad to have you aboard, you and your friend." He glanced at Victorine. "I think I've seen you before. The knitting looks familiar."

"And why not?" Victorine demanded. "I have carried these needles for protection since the good God knows when, knitting all day, and at night pulling out what I have knitted."

"For protection?" Marvin asked.

Victorine wagged her head. "Hah, but you were rightl I knew you were right when you spoke rudely to this cabbage here" she stabbed a needle toward Corunna "in Paris."

"Yes," he said, "it was in Paris that I saw you."

"As I say," Victorine continued placidly, "I knowl Me, I knowl What we females need is not compliments, but truth. Of my husbands, the most successful with me spoke truthfully to me; and I, to keep him quiet, pretended to an adoration for him that was somewhat more than I felt. Thus we adored each otherl Ah, yes, he was the best of them alll"

Marvin glanced quickly at Corunna, but she was staring through

the stern windows with hard, uninterested eyes at the towering blueI

cone of Fayal.

'Well," he said awkwardly, "if there's anything you need, either of you, you'll let us know. I thought you might like I just thought I'd say that Steven found your sea trunk aboard the Blue Swan. It's here. I'll send it down to you. This is the captain's cabin you're in, but you won't need to think of that I mean, I'll steer clear of enemy vessels while you're well, I only mean you're welcome to the cabin."

She looked at him, and in her look there was disdain and anger still. It seemed that somehow he had been guilty of something, or that Corunna thought so; and he felt, as he had felt before, that he could never please her.

He moved to the door, then, and fumbled with the latch. "Well," he said, "it may be a month before we can set you ashore. We can't control these winter winds. You may find it hard that is, if you'd rather not have me if you'd rather not speak to me, Corunna, your

your lady here could bring me messages about anything you'd like I

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us to do like us to do for your comfort." He pressed the latch and hesitated, looking across the cabin at them. Victorine slid a sidelong glance at him above her knitting, but Corunna, examining the elbow of her Chinese jacket, might already have forgotten his existence. So he went out.

From Fayal the True-Hearted Yankee bore up to the northeastward. For two days Marvin, busy with the discipline and welfare of his crew, caught only fleeting glimpses of his passengers; for they, it seemed, came to the deck when he was in his own small berth, or working with his charts.

He had the thought, late on the second day, that they might find it easier if he should let them hear, as if by accident, that he would keep the deck at night, leaving it free for them at earlier hours. With the thought, he went on deck to find the brig rushing along a plain of black and silver beneath a moon so brilliant that it had the look of being closer than the distant mastheads. By its light he saw that his thought to remain in his cabin by day and to emerge only when darkness fell would not please Corunna; that here, once more, he could not please her.